Are you ready for a life changing discovery? You can make brownies with Diet Coke. Let it sink in for a minute. Now let’s hug and share a coke!

I made these brownies over the weekend and they were a giant hit. We’re talking fighting over crumbs. We’re talking pushing and shoving in the kitchen. We’re talking every woman and man for themselves. Can you believe that such brownie grabbing would be caused by 3 simple ingredients?

Well this post is well overdue! We visited Toronto and I have been meaning to post it! It’s been at the top of my notebook for weeks, but somehow Pancakes, Jelly Donuts and Twix Popcorn got posted first. Can you tell my stomach decides the order of posts? 😉

But first I wanted to alert you guys that during this weekend Brooklyn Farm Girl will be going through some design changes. I’m hoping on Monday you’ll see a all new pretty design but with that comes the fun of switching themes and making everything look good. The site will still be up over the weekend if you need to find any garden details or recipes but it just might not look very pretty. Wish me luck!

Creamy Cauliflower Mashed Potatoes , these are just like mashed potatoes but instead uses no potatoes or milk! This will be your new favorite side dish recipe for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner!

If there’s one side dish that is almost always requested for dinner and holidays it’s Creamy Mashed Cauliflower. This is a healthier take on regular mashed potatoes as it’s made with cauliflower instead.

With cauliflower so popular in the garden right now Summer often becomes a time to enjoy it. One of my favorite dinners is some BBQ chicken served alongside a big spoonful of Creamy Mashed Cauliflower. As soon as the basket is full of cauliflower heads it’s almost a given that this recipe will be made in the next few days to be enjoyed. Right now we have multiple cauliflower heads that we harvested so we’re lucking out being able to have this pretty often.

NO BUTTER Homemade Pancakes are fluffy and so easy to make! They’re so good you won’t miss the butter at all (that makes them more healthy too!). These made from scratch pancakes are my favorite Saturday morning breakfast, my family considers them the best!

Don’t have any butter? That’s ok. Today we’re going to make some No Butter Homemade Pancakes. They’re just as delicious as butter made ones… maybe even better. 🙂 I wish I could say these pancakes were created because suddenly I wanted to make healthy pancakes and do without the butter, but the truth is that we were out of butter.

Hope this recipe helps you if you’re all out of butter too! It might just become your new favorite pancake recipe!

Peeking is a ongoing series where I peek into other’s gardens and snoop around. If you’re in the NYC area and have a garden you’d like to share, please email me. I’d love to see what you are doing and share your garden story! For more peeking posts click here.

“Really healthy plants start with really healthy seedlings,” explains John Kempf. I got John to answer a few questions about garden memories and helpful tips. He also shared some great photos with Brooklyn Farm Girl of his farm in Ohio. Hope you enjoy today’s feature!

First of all, do you have World Cup fever? I get so darn excited every 4 years. If you’re from America, did you watch the USA vs Portugal game yesterday? Did you scream, yell, cheer, cry, then become confused why you are crying because after all tying Portugal 2-2 is actually ok? Yeah, me too. The game had so many ups and downs and the last 30 seconds.. oh man. I can’t even talk about it! Let’s get psyched for USA vs Germany on Thursday though! Here in NYC they have been showing all the World Cup games on a big screen under the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO (part of Brooklyn). Being a Sunday evening, the game was packed with USA USA USA chanting fans. We went and it ended up being such a blast. Large groups of people cheering with positivity and little negativity (basically only when Ronaldo is on the screen) is always a good time.

Today we’re going to take a minute and talk about blog identity and process writing on a stop on The Writing Process Blog Tour. The lovely and talented Shashi made her post and then nominated Brooklyn Farm Girl to continue the tour. I’d like to thank Shashi and all her amazing recipes and inspirational posts she makes. Plus I really want to thank her for her No-Bake Mocha Protein Bars because seriously… look at them!

Brooklyn Farm Girl was created a year ago. Prior to that I was blogging on a personal blog where I think 5 other people knew about for many years. Prior to that I always had a blog in some capacity since I got my first computer when I was 13 years old. I’ve always loved sharing information with others and building relationships online with people that shared similar interests. Towards the end of my previous blog I started to really enjoy posting about our garden and recipes so I decided to create a blog that went full force into that world. Brooklyn Farm Girl started…. and here we are.

I’ve been promising to start posting more of what I do outside of gardening and cooking, so here I am with a Behind The Scenes of a recent project we did. If you guys dig this new feature, let me know in the comments as I’d love to start documenting and sharing more of our work!

We’ve been working with V Magazine for years now and they were one of the first believers in showing moving images and videos for fashion content. They really let us do our thing and be creative so it’s always fun working on a project for them. For this shoot our goal was to do a project that focused on 3D scans. We wanted to shoot the model as is on a regular background and then have her avatar, a 3D scan of herself, next to her. After some testing on ourselves we figured out what was the best software to use along side the Microsoft Kinect which we’d be using for scanning.

JELLY FILLED donut muffin holes are AMAZING! These baked donut holes are easy to make and are rolled around in delicious cinnamon sugar! These homemade treats taste just like Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins but are much healthier!

So there’s no judging here, right? So when I tell you we made these Easy Jelly Donut Holes late at night one evening and the next morning they were gone already, you won’t judge me, right? Ok good. Because this totally happened and I have no regrets.

I have been craving donuts. Bad. I think I say at least once a day “I want a donut” and I really do want one. I love chocolate donuts,peanut butter donuts, tea donuts, carrot cake donuts and more but I have a very soft spot for Donut Holes, especially when they are cinnamon sugar covered. Oh and also when they are filled with homemade jelly that just smells like strawberries and Summertime. These donuts you guys, they’re made of happiness and magic.

When I originally made these I thought they were going to last so that I could share with friends the following day, but they are so irresistible that they were gone rather quickly before sharing with friends. So this week I’ll be making 2 more batches.. one for friends and one for us again. They’re that good!

I hope you give these a shot. They would perfect for breakfast, a great treat to bring into work to share with coworkers, or a dessert. Honestly, they’d be perfect all the time.

This Double Chocolate Banana Smoothie is the perfect breakfast, afternoon snack or dessert! It uses frozen bananas which you can store in the freezer for whenever you want a smoothie!

When I made this Smoothie we enjoyed it for dessert one evening. Matthew is not big on bananas at all but he sipped this smoothie down with a smile. Although the banana flavor can be tasted, it’s not a banana overkill making it a happy pick me up snack or dessert for both banana lovers and not so big fans.

This Smoothie is also double chocolate because I think everything in life should be double the chocolate. Don’t you agree? This recipe calls for cocoa powder and chocolate peanut butter. Chocolate peanut butter is something I’m obsessed with in baking and smoothies but if you don’t have access to it, regular peanut butter would totally do the trick too! Also don’t you love having Double Chocolate anything for breakfast? Talk about a great way to start the day!

If you’re anything like me then you crave fruits during the day, especially in the Summer time. In the morning I prefer a banana or raspberries, in the afternoon I love some apples or blackberries and for dessert it’s all about cherries! Because I’m often on the go or am not working from home I always love a healthy snack that I can throw in my bag. Have you ever thrown a pint of raspberries in your bag, forgot about them, and then thrown a laptop on top of them? Ugh. Or don’t remind me about that banana I totally forgot about… weird things can happen to bananas that are forgotten. Trust me.

Let me introduce you to my new favorite friend that solves all these problems. OneBar! OneBar is a low calorie snack that offers one full serving of fruit in each bar. I know, isn’t it amazing? What makes OneBar unique is that it’s line contains baobab as a flavor. Baobab is a super fruit that is packed with more nutrition than any other super fruit. Because of how awesome Baobab are, their trees are endangered. Because OneBar sources the fruit fair trade then they’re able to protect the trees from being cut down. Baobab is a great source of dietary calcium – perfect for vegans and vegetarians. It also has nearly 6x (!) the amount of potassium then bananas. You can use baobab in OneBars as a healthy snack, but you can also use it in smoothies, baked goods, cereals and more.

What’s my favorite OneBar flavor? I’m glad you asked! I am totally in love with the Cherry flavor. It reminds me of a adult fruit rollup.. in bar form. It’s pretty magical when you take that first bite! I can’t wait to hear what you think of OneBar. Tell me in the comments if you have tried them. If you haven’t tried them – which one do you think will be your favorite? Cherry, Apple or Mango?

Check out how awesome the ingredients are of the Mango flavor.

Because I think you rule (I really do) enter the giveaway below for three boxes (Apple, Cherry and Mango) of OneBar. 40 winners (!) will be picked! The giveaway ends on June 19th at noon PST.
If you can’t get enough of them, you can also buy here and use the coupon code EasyFruit which will give you 25% off. Just make sure to order before April 31.

These Baked Soy Sauce Meatballs are delicious and healthy! Recipe includes lettuce in the meatballs alongside ground beef, turkey and many herbs. They are perfect for serving over pasta or serving as finger food!

This is a meatball recipe full of flavor! It’s perfect for pasta and meatball subs!

With our big lettuce harvest, you might have heard me on Twitter exclaiming it was a Meatball Date in the kitchen! There’s Matthew, Me, 16 pounds of ground meat, dozens of eggs and a entire sink full of lettuce that was just washed. If that doesn’t sound like a romantic evening then I don’t know what is! So there we stood for the next few hours, in assembly line fashion, making meatballs! How many meatballs did we make? I’m glad you asked. We made 226 of them! After we made them, we divided them into bags for dinner and froze them. With this big lettuce harvest we were able to freeze over 25 dinner meals. Pasta and meatballs? Done! Meatball casserole? Done! Meatball subs? Done!

These meatballs are full of lettuce! Each batch of 30 meatballs calls for 4 cups chopped lettuce making it a great way to use up a ton of lettuce at once. Combined with the lettuce we’re throwing in a few tablespoons of soy sauce making them extra full of flavor. I don’t think I can go back to not adding soy sauce to meatballs now.. it makes them real special!

Hi guys! Happy Wednesday! In today’s post I’m going to show you some of the yummy green harvest we’ve been picking!

The season usually starts with lots of green and then it’ll lead into more colors… the reds with tomatoes, the pinks with watermelon, the oranges with pumpkins… but first up the bushy green friends that make my heart pitter patter! Right now it’s all about bok choy, broccoli, peas and cauliflower! Because of these harvests we’ve been having some pretty delicious dinners… I just can’t say enough great things about a simple pasta dinner with fresh veggies! It’s always the best! And if you want to take it to the next step, you can always make the dish creamier. Who doesn’t love that?

Last week we picked our first cauliflower. Since then we picked a few more! Cauliflower is one of those extra special plants that always gets you excited to see grow. As soon as I see the small white head start to poke out I always let out a big sigh of happy relief.
Also, I’m totally living in black linen dresses this Summer!

Right next to the cauliflower is the broccoli, also a winner of hearts and sighs. Right now our refrigerator is filled with broccoli, there’s no greater sight than that!

I love a good basket full of broccoli! I’ll soon have a whole post dedicated to broccoli.. just because I love it so much!

Want to see something silly and sweet? This broccoli here had a leaf guarding one side so it left him with a half tanned design!

Next up is the Sugar Snap Peas! We’re about to enter into a world full of Sugar Snap peas as the pounds we’re picking a day has quickly increased. We tripled our sugar snap pea plants this year so it’s about to get intense! One day it’s just plants… the next day it’s flowers.. then suddenly it’s peas everywhere!

Lastly we have the bok choy! The bok choy plants grew amazing this year, pretty much we never expected them to grow this big or well. What we’re left with is big bags full of bok choy! Last night I made a delicious garlic bok choy noodle recipe that left me with ultimate harvest happiness! I’ll be sharing the recipe on the blog next week!

I hope you guys enjoyed a look at this week’s harvest!

I also want to thank this little bee who keeps stopping by the garden. It always makes my day when a bee somehow finds it’s way up to the roof and lives in the garden. The same goes for ladybugs. You guys are always invited in the garden!

Don’t forget to check out our Garden Yield Chart where we’ll be weighing all the vegetables we pick this year!

FAST and EASY Salsa made with Canned Diced Tomatoes! Just add green peppers and onions to this simple recipe and you’ll have a delicious chunky salsa ready to serve in minutes! This Canned Diced Tomato Salsa tastes just like the salsa at your favorite Mexican restaurant!

It happens to us all. We’re out of fresh tomatoes and we need salsa. Maybe we need salsa for a get together. Maybe we need it for a recipe. Maybe we’re just craving it with some chips. I’m here to help save the day by letting you know that you can totally make great tasting salsa with canned tomatoes! Let’s check out this easy cooking recipe that you’re going to love!

This salsa is delicious and can fight with the best of them in terms of a salsa battle. So grab a bag of tortilla chips and meet me in the kitchen for some Canned Diced Tomato Salsa!

You might be surprised by how fresh this salsa tastes. When I made it I kept getting compliments and questions about if all the ingredients were homegrown. Alongside the diced tomatoes this recipe calls for fresh green peppers and onions so there’s a great fresh crunch that happens when you take a bite!

Happy Monday everyone!
I hope you had a great weekend and got to spend some time getting your nails dirty in some soil!
I wanted to take care of some changes that you might see around Brooklyn Farm Girl in today’s post.

First you might have noticed the BlogHer banner to the right. I was so happy to receive word that I’m now part of the BlogHer Network! This is something I was hoping to be a part of almost since Brooklyn Farm Girl started so I’m happy to see it here! With it comes some advertising banner changes that I had to make. I had to remove some ads to work with their terms, but in the long run I hope this is a good idea. I’ll be monitoring this through the next few months to make sure it’s the best fit for the blog. I’m honored to be part of such a great group of bloggers so I’m hoping everything works out here!

Second, I have been wanting to show you guys this video that the fine folks at Miracle Gro and Home Depot made of me in the garden. It’s only a few minutes now and I hope it doesn’t bore you too much! 😉 Welcome to our garden! By the way, don’t you love the thumbnail for this video? I’m either gardening or burying bodies on the roof.

Lastly, I wanted to share some new features I created in the Garden section here at Brooklyn Farm Girl. When you visit the Garden part you’ll notice a few new sections.

What are all these about? Let me explain!

Posts – This is where all the garden posts will live. Basically anything garden related from how to’s and harvests will be archived here.

Recipes – This is where all recipes will be archived that focus on garden recipes. If we grow it and I use it in a recipe, it will be here. Eventually I am going to have a ingredients picker here so it’ll be more specific to what you’re looking for. Example: You just grew a bunch of lettuce and don’t want to search through a bunch of recipes, you just want the lettuce recipes. So you’ll click lettuce and all those recipes will be listed. I’m working with a designer now to get some pretty graphics for this!

Garden Yield Chart – This year we are tracking the weight of all the vegetables we harvest. We’ve been meaning to do this for years but finally got around to doing this. This chart will be updated every single time we pick something so keep checking back. Already we’re close to 25 pounds! High 5’s!

How to Store Vegetables – This is a long list of directions on how to store vegetables and fruits. It lists how to store each to make them long as possible. It also gives instructions if you can freeze it or not. I pretty much visit this page myself whenever I need to know what to do.

Seed Calendar – This lists the dates for every seed we have planted for the past few years. This is a good way for us to keep track of our seed schedule so we can compare with past years. It’s basically the list we live by in regards to knowing when to plant and when to transplant. If you’re in a similar zone as us I hope this helps you.

When I first started the blog I had a section called “Peeking” where I visited other people’s gardens. It was a way for me to show other people’s spaces for inspiration and just to really appreciate what others were doing. This section got pushed to the side a bit, but it’s always been something I wish I did more of, so I’m bringing it back. This week I’ll have a new Peeking feature so look out for it… it’s a good one!

So that’s some Monday cleanup here on the blog.

I hope you guys like the changes and I hope you are digging (hahaha) the garden section being expanded. If you ever have any suggestions for future garden posts, or need info on a how to, let me know!

And to leave you with, my current cat video I’m obsessed with. Everytime I watch it I have to hold my stomach because I’m laughing so hard. There’s so much truth in this.

Delicious recipe for Caramel TWIX Popcorn. A homemade caramel sauce is melted on the popcorn along with chopped up TWIX candy bars!

Today we’re going to make homemade Caramel Popcorn with some chopped up TWIX Bites candy bars on top. This recipe is happy snacking at it’s finest.

One of my favorite snacks at sporting events or carnivals is Caramel Popcorn. At the Brooklyn Nets game you can get a variety bucket of popcorn that has in it Caramel, Cheddar and Chocolate popcorn. It’s a beautiful snack. What I noticed is whenever we get this Matthew and I are always fighting over the caramel popcorn pieces, so I decided why not make some homemade caramel popcorn with chocolate thrown on top? I mean seriously.. isn’t life always better with chocolate on top?

The caramel sauce you’re going to make over the stove is made out of dreams. Whatever was left in the pot when I was done I basically let dry and then scraped it up with my hands and a spoon and ate it because I’m classy like that. Oh and the TWIX Bites you’re going to use on top? Addictive. I’m warning you now. I love these on the go snacks so much that I bought a undisclosed number of bags before I got around to finally making this recipe. I bought a bag specifically for this recipe and then we would just eat them all. And then we repeated this Again. And again. Don’t ask me how many Bites I ate! Also who wants to unwrap small candy bars? I love that these are all unwrapped for you…. quicker to eat! 🙂

In a saucepan over medium high heat melt butter. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup, salt and vanilla. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Then don't stir it for 3 minutes straight, letting it continue to boil.

Remove saucepan from heat and stir in baking soda.

Pour this hot caramel mixture over your popcorn, stirring to coat all kernels. You need to move slightly quick during this part as the caramel dries.

Prepare 2 large cookie sheets by spraying them with nonstick spray. Place popcorn on top trying to make it 1 layer.

Creamy Vegetable Ziti Pasta is a tasty comfort meal recipe that includes lettuce and radishes!

Get ready for a creamy pasta meal full of vegetables! It’s the perfect combination!

As you saw earlier this week we picked a bunch of lettuce so I’ve been going dinner recipe crazy with coming up with ways on how to use it. Most people think salads when they have lettuce but we’re not big salad people so I always want to think of ways on how to use it for dinner. I love using lettuce as a main ingredient in adding crunch and healthy vegetables to a dinner dish. We love creamy pasta for dinner but often vegetables go unlooked when adding to it, especially lettuce. For this recipe here we added a big pile of lettuce and radishes to the dish which complimented the creamy pasta perfectly!

After dinner we both proclaimed this to be one of our new favorite dinner dishes… so bring on the lettuce in this creamy dish!

I hope you guys give this a taste for dinner soon! I think you’ll love it!

Radishes are a quick producing vegetable which makes them always a great beginner plant to grow. After planting your seeds you only have to wait about 30 days before they’re ready to pick. Don’t you love that quick producing turnaround?

I hope you guys got your seeds planted after the How To I posted. I wanted to show you the harvest that we got that was picked from that very post. I am totally in love with these Radishes and have been including them in almost every single pasta dish we are eating. Who doesn’t love a radish as a snack too?

After a few weeks your radishes will begin to pop out of your container. They will just get bigger and bigger. Most radishes are ready to pick at around 30 days so once they’re popping out, just yank them up!

For radishes I will usually start by picking 1 or 2 to enjoy as I need it and then I’ll just clear the entire container and pick them all. Radishes store well so you can enjoy them for a few weeks after harvesting.

And then immediately after they were picked, a new bunch of seeds were planted! I’ll keep on doing this process until Fall.